Punch
by Loyolablu
Summary: [Evan/Pietro, Evietro, slash, etc.] Making a grand gesture gets complex when Evan starts having difficulties with his powers [Chapter 4]
1. Hurts Like This

Author's thing: So at least a couple people still like Evietro. Cool. Well, this is another story in the **Action Verb Series I unearthed from the recesses of my floppy disks. Thanks to batE for the story idea and for the prologue (the part in italics). All the other stuff is mine.**

R/R if you want. Critique and commentary welcome

_If, on some quiet, sunlit day, some uninformed, but possibly well-meaning soul had approached Evan Daniels – a boy who, through a twist of genetics and a whole host of dairy products – passed flint-sharp bone shards through his bare skin as easily and as painlessly as a "normal" person manufactured tears, or sweat, or spit – and told him that after having his left earlobe pierced by a needle about a thin as a pencil point, in a process that took about 10 seconds, he would faint dead away on a linoleum floor that tasted and smelt like nail polish, Evan would have laughed himself sick. Then kicked whoever had the effrontery to suggest such a thing in the nads. And then he would have laughed again. He was The Spyke. The Human Pin Cushion. A person who, at any given moment, might look down at himself to see pieces of bone – his bones  . . .  bones that were sharp enough and strong enough to cut through wires, through glass – jutting out from his skin like so many quills on a cactus. And he wouldn't flinch, wouldn't blink.  Him faint at a needle's prick? What was a needle to him? _

_Flitting in and out of a sort of muddled state of consciousness, the question echoed through the spike-shooter's mind. He wished he could stand up at least – he was sure he'd be able to figure out why such a simple thing as getting his ear pierced – something people did all the time – people with much less mental and physical fortitude than he had – would send him careening to the floor in a swoon. If only he could stand . . . or sit up a little . . . or at least – at the very least, if only he could open his eyes . . .  he was sure he could figure it out._

_Voices rose and fell like staccato breaths around him – many of the sounds were like white noise to him – ever-present, but discernable only if you were listening closely – but a few penetrated his conscious – one oddly high-pitched, another deeper one, speaking slowly. And then there was that other voice – moderate, with traces of a tremble. The person spoke in an absurdly low tone, almost as if from the bottom of a coffee cup. Evan heard this subdued, muffled voice the clearest, and the more of it he heard, the more content he was to give himself up to the blackness that was creeping toward him in stealthy strides, thinking, as he faded into full unconsciousness, that none of this would have ever happened if it hadn't been for that damned smoothie._

~*~

"Just admit that you're a chickenshit lamer who's piss-in-his-pants _scaaaaaaaareed_, and _maybe _I'll give you your pants back."

It was hard, Evan knew, to love Pietro when he was like _this – hyper and "up" and bored and smelling blood. Of course, the speedy mutant was one or all of those things at any given time, so it _should _have been hard to love him at _any _time at all. _That _made sense. On the other hand, finding him irresistible, even with that maddening smirk on the thin face, even with that slightly malevolent glint in the blue eyes and even when he was holding his khakis hostage, made _no _sense at all. But was even more ridiculous was Evan's determination __not to let Pietro win this round. Even if he had to skate home in his boxers, he wasn't going to let his hyper boyfriend get away with calling him a lamer – and a chickenshit one at that? No way –_

A _whoosh_ and a silver hazecircled Evan in an instant, making him dizzy and cold at once. And in the next moment, he felt another piece of clothing get snatched off his body, and goose bumps began to rise on his . . . __

"Arrrgh! All right, that's _it!" Evan lunged for the grinning teen, who dangled the blond's boxer shorts triumphantly from his fingertips. Pietro neatly sidestepped the angry teen, waving the underwear like a banner. "I'm not playing!" Another lunge prompted Pietro to zip in a shapeless blur and rematerialize across the room. "Maximoff, you are _so _going down for this!"_

"Talking dirty's not going to get you your clothes back." Pietro zoomed around the room, pinching and slapping his boyfriend's ass as he went, mindless of Evan's shouts of protest. "Stop being stubborn, Daniels, and just _say _it. You. Are. Amazingly. Lame."

"_You_ are_ amazingly lame, yeah, that's for damn sure," Evan muttered, endeavoring to cover his manhood and bare ass by yanking his sweater down. Nothing could be normal when he was in the Brotherhood home, he mused, particularly in the rundown, torn-apart Brotherhood living room. There was no such thing as a quiet night watching the X-Games global special and eating pizza with his speeding love. If it wasn't one of Pietro's housemates barging in on them, demanding the channel to be changed, a slice of pizza or that Evan and Pietro stop making out in front of all of them. When Pietro had invited him over to "hang out" that night, slyly mentioning that Lance, Todd, Tabby and Fred were all going to be out of the house, Evan thought they'd finally spend some decent, quality time together away from prying eyes and big mouths. It had worked that way for about fifteen minutes, but no sooner was _Nightmare of the Living Alien(s)_ on than did Pietro, fueled by three slices of double pepperoni and four bottles of JambaJolt, decide that their "quiet" night was going to get a lot livelier._

"I didn't come here to be insulted, treated like a punk, stripped and slapped on my ass." Evan glowered at a disbelieving chuckle that rose from the silver streak swirling around him. "All right, all right, so maybe the last two aren't so bad, but damn, 'Tro, I thought we'd gone over this – I can't do it. I know I said I would, but I . . . I changed my mind. I told you about my parents . . . I nearly got sent home – I can't afford to piss them off again. So why are we even talking about it now?"

"Because." Pietro got in one last swat before he came to an abrupt halt in front of his half-dressed guest. "I don't believe you. This isn't about your folks, and you know it. It's about you – so why don't you give it up Daniels and tell me the real deal? Not that I don't already know –"

Evan's eyes widened, then went flinty with anger. _Now he'd done it. __Now the silver-haired teen had crossed the line, and Evan didn't care if he'd be grounded for years for walking through Bayville bare-assed with his stuff swinging in the breeze for all to see. He didn't __care.  He was getting out of that house before he did something extremely regrettable – like force-feed Pietro his teeth._

"Later." Evan turned on his heel walked determinedly toward the front door, stopping only to collect his skateboard from beneath a chair. Not that he ever expected his relationship with his erstwhile nemesis to be anything short of . . . complicated, but sometimes Pietro could take it too far, and when those times came up, best thing both of them could do was just take a step back and –

"Hey! Wheredoyouthinkyou'regoing?" A hand snagged the back of Evan's sweatshirt and nearly yanked him off his feet. "You'renaked!"

"Oh, so _now _you care about that?" Evan shook himself out of Pietro's grip, and gave the astonished boy a disgusted glare. "You know what man? You can call me a lamer or a fuckwad or whatever – but the minute you call me a _liar, I'm out. I don't need this." He paused and deepened his glare, aiming his next words like rapier. "Or you. So why don't we just forget about all of it?"_

Pietro took a step back, almost as if the words themselves had smacked him upside the head, and Evan turned abruptly away, forgetting about his pants and underwear, which Pietro still held, and about the sharp beginnings of headache that was beginning to form right behind his eyelids. Evan knew he'd forget the taunts and the smacks and the teasing and the five layers of grease on the pizza – it would all be a distant memory by the next day, most likely. But the shattered look in the speedster's eyes and the pitiful motion he made when he dropped Evan's purloined clothes on the floor and supersped to his room, slamming the door behind him,  _that _wasn't going to be forgotten by the blond for quite awhile. Not by a long shot.

Slowly  pulling on his shorts and khakis, Evan's eyes were locked to the top of the stairs, and it was only when he heard the screech of Death Cab coming from behind Pietro's closed door did he let himself out and roll slowly back to the mansion.

~*~

"So is it over?"

"I don't know. Maybe." Evan wearily handed Kurt a dripping plate, which the German teen proceeded to dry and stack with the rest of the dinnerware. "I mean, it's been a day. We haven't talked or anything." 

Grabbing another plate from beneath the sudsy water, Evan halfheartedly ran a dishrag over it and recalled the abrupt about-face Pietro had done the one time that afternoon they'd come into direct contact. To say he'd calmed down a bit was an understatement, and after tossing and turning for most of the night, Evan had it in his mind to apologize to his white-haired paramour. Ever since the  . . . _development, he'd been a little touchy about everything, and maybe he'd taken his frustrations out unfairly. Sure, Pietro pushed his buttons. Hard. But that was __Pietro. It was what he did, how he was. And fine, he'd intimated that Evan had been lying . . . which, when the blond had more time to think it over, was not exactly the case, but . . . he wasn't telling Pietro the whole story, either . . ._

"What was the fight about?" Kurt sounded more than casually curious, which unnerved Evan a little. Kurt, while more or less "cool" with the idea of Evan dating Pietro had made it pretty clear at the outset that he didn't want to hear the "dirty" details of their relationship – disagreements included. "I thought everything was going okay with you two."

"It was, but . . ." Evan unstoppered the sink and watched the dirty water swirl down the drain, the miniature vortex reminding him of Pietro's whirl-and-tweak move of the past night. "We . . . he . . . well, he . . . kinda wants me to do something I totally don't think I'm ready for, and he's not takin' no for an answer."

Evan looked over and nearly fell on the floor in shock. Kurt was _not _wearing his image inducer, but the blue-furred mutant had gone as pale as a sheet. "Um . . . dude, maybe you should be having this talk with Scott. I mean, he has a lot more experience about, uh, this sort of thing than I do." Kurt's golden eyes went huge with terror. "Unless . . . oh god, Ev . . . please tell me he didn't force you!"

"Force me?" Evan frowned, rubbing his chin. "Nah. Not even Maximoff's that sadis–" He stopped short, his mind suddenly interpreting Kurt's horrified look. "Ah, man, no! No! It's not about _that." Evan debated for one insane moment telling Kurt the real details and extent of his and Pietro's sexual adventures – just as a way of reassuring his friend and teammate – but decided against it, confident that if Kurt heard _that, _he might start turning orange or something. "No. A couple of months ago, we were talking and we both thought it'd be kind of cool to have something . . . kind of a symbol that we're together without it being too obvious." The skater wiped his hands on his cargos. "Something just for us, I guess. We talked about rings, but something like that is _way _too hardcore and kinda girly."_

"Not to mention noticeable," Kurt said. "There is no way people wouldn't ask a whole lot of questions, and it's not like it's easy to keep a secret around here." He pointed to his head and nodded out toward the living room area where Jean and Ororo were talking and laughing. 

"Tell me about it." Evan looked over at his aunt and remembered how closely she'd studied him at dinner, noticing how listless he'd seemed and how little he'd eaten. Afterward, she'd taken him aside and asked if everything was all right and he'd made up something about worrying about a project. He wasn't sure if she'd bought the excuse, but she _had left him alone. He sighed softly – for a place that practically had its own zip code, the mansion sure seemed small. "So anyway, we talked it over and tried to figure out what we could do. We couldn't do matching clothes or hair or tattoos or whatever. And that's when he suggested that I . . . um . . ." Evan's shoulders hunched. It all seemed so petty and pointless now. "Uh . . . he thought it'd be kind of cool if I got my ear pierced. And then we could have the same kind of earring or something in the same ear."_

Kurt said nothing for awhile. "That is sort of romantic in a  . . . very weird and frightening way."

The blond almost smiled. Coming from Kurt, that was high praise. "Yeah, well, I was into it . . . and we were gonna go to the mall and get it done, but . . . a little after we decided on it, the . . . the . . . thing started happening to me."

The blue mutant looked confused for a minute, then nodded his head in sympathy. "Oh, right. Uh, dude . . . are you _sure you shouldn't tell someone about that? The Professor? Dr. McCoy? What if it's dangerous?"_

"_No._" Evan's tone brooked no argument. "Like I told you, man, it's probably nothing. Just . . . growing pains. I'm not gonna freak people out over something that'll probably disappear in another week or two."

Kurt didn't look convinced. "Yes, but, you say it's getting worse . . . I seriously think you should tell someone. I'm worried for you –"

"Save it Wagner, okay? I'm fine." Evan turned away, rubbing a suddenly itching forearm. "It's just annoying, that's all, but it means getting _anything _pierced is out. Someone punching a hole in my ear. With a _needle. _And if I'm not expecting it, it could get ugly. Real ugly. . ." He trailed off, not wanting to finish the thought. "Anyway, I told Maximoff I didn't want to do it because if my parents find out, they'll freak."

"Would they?"

Evan shook his head slowly. "They wouldn't be thrilled, but when I did _this,_" He waved his hand over his bleached hair, "they were mad for like a day, and then they got used to it and even kinda liked it. I don't think my dad would be crazy about me having an earring, but he'd deal. My mom, too." The itching in his forearm intensified and Evan absently scratched harder. "And Pietro _knows that . . . so telling him that I didn't want to do it 'cause I'd get in trouble with my folks was just __stupid to say. And he called me on it. He thinks I'm just afraid of the needle." Evan made a disgusted noise. "Me afraid of a needle? He should know better"_

"So level with him." Kurt said it as if it were an incredibly obvious solution. "Tell him about how your powers are going nuts and you're scared that you could hurt somebody. As annoying as he is, I'm sure he'd understand that. Right?"

"Um . . ." Kurt's voice seemed faraway to Evan as he stared down at his itching arm and watched in horror as two rows of sharp-edged bone spikes of differing sizes popped up along the irritated skin of their own accord. Taking a deep breath, he concentrated on getting the spikes to recede. When after a few seconds they did not, he took another deep breath, this time to halt the trembling of his body as he closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and strained and sweated in concentration until he swore he could feel his brain leaking through his ears. Cracking open an eye after a few seconds of his all-out effort, he let out the breath he was holding when he saw the spikes had gone away – but not without leaving a series of raised, red welts along his arm. Rubbing the sore spots cautiously, Evan felt a shiver course down his spine. _What the hell is happening to me?_


	2. All in the Open

Author's thing: Thanks for the reviews. Good to see the Evietro love hasn't burned out after all. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to write these two. There'll be one more chapter after this. And thank you **Chiru for pointing out something I neglected to make clear. This is a pre **X-Treme Measures **fic. Reviews welcome.**

Leaving Bayville High after another fun-filled day of useless learning, Evan bounded down the front steps and found himself longing for the old days when school was just a boring task to be endured and not a six-and-a-half-hour drama that consisted of locker vandalism, miscellaneous objects thrown at his head in class, and stage whispers of  _fucking mutie_. That endearing term was hurled at him as he passed a couple of gangly youths who, before the "outing" of mutant existence, Evan had considered his buddies. The blond walked by, not even bothering to look their way because he knew that loud whispers and snickers would be as much abuse as those cowards would be willing to inflict on him – to his face at least. Everyone knew what his power was, so typically, he was left alone, as was Scott, now that what lay behind those shades was common knowledge. Rogue and Kitty were pretty much avoided, but Jean enjoyed some residual popularity – especially from those who begged her to "peek" into their teachers' minds for answers to upcoming tests.  Kurt was still in the closet so far as his mutancy was concerned, so he – or his hologram form at least – was as well liked as ever. Evan looked down at his board, sighing and resigning himself to another long afternoon of skateboarding – alone.

Life – or at least his – had thoroughly sucked in the days since mutantkind had been "discovered." Before the mess in New York City and the Sentinels and the capture and the manhunt, Evan had been fairly popular, decently liked and somewhat adjusted at Bayville High. Now, all of his skating buddies had deserted him, Coach had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome on the basketball team. He'd spun some crappy story about teams in other districts deciding that having a mutant on the team would present an unfair advantage and/or a possible danger to others. Never mind that he'd never thrown a spike or during a game and his powers had nothing to do with his prowess on the court. Evan could read the message in Coach's cold, gray eyes: There would be no _fucking muties on _his _team._

Edging away from his fellow dismissed students, the blond put some distance between himself and the crowd, standing beneath a large pine tree, and considered just going home, finishing his homework early for a change and zoning out in his room. He'd barely been able to concentrate the whole day as the unbearable itching and random appearances of spikes drove him half out of his mind. Rolling up the sleeve on his hoodie, Evan rubbed the fading welts on his arm. They were other places, too – his back, his knees, even on the shaved areas of his scalp. It was seriously beginning to freak him out, but then, when he'd first discovered his powers, it had been a scary time, too. He glanced thoughtfully over to where a bunch of his former basketball teammates were boarding a bus for an away game, and he sighed bitterly. Maybe the whole spike thing was an offshoot of his frustration of being a virtual pariah and being forced to quit doing things he loved to do _and was good at. Or maybe it was just growing pains. Literally._

"They're gonna get their asses kicked."

Evan nearly tripped over his board at the unexpected voice, and he whirled around to face the suddenly present Pietro, who was sneering at the boys getting on the school bus. Swallowing hard, Evan wasn't sure what to do or say. He had barely seen the speedy mutant in the two days following their "tiff," let alone talked to him. Evan had wondered if it really was over between them or if it _should _be, and he'd interpreted Pietro's silence and avoidance as confirmation that they weren't going to be hanging out anymore. But now . . .

"Playing Central? Have you been smoking crack? Bayville's JV squad could make Central's starters look like a joke." Evan spoke cautiously and was a little nervous about the seriousness in Pietro's expression. _What does he want? What's he doing? Small-talk was generally not in Pietro's bag of tricks. "They'll probably score 75 before Central's five get their sneakers on."_

"With that pitiful lineup? Not likely." Pietro was still not looking at him. "Maybe they'd have a chance if they had a _real point guard and not a tackling dummy."_

Evan blinked. Point guard had been _his position before Coach had forced him out. Watching a slow smirk form on the white-haired mutant's face, Evan smiled for the first time in what seemed days. Pietro's compliments were always oblique and backhanded, but even so, they were always sincere. "Thanks," he said softly._

"Don't flatter yourself, Daniels," Pietro said with a smirk. "They were _barely _a team when you were there. But they're even more hopeless now that they've got someone in there who's built like a cement mixer – and is probably about as fast."

The skater did his best to look annoyed, but inside he was grinning. Pietro ribbing him was a sure sign that they were okay again, or at least, Pietro wasn't as pissed as he had been after their fight. "Screw you, Maximoff." Evan didn't try to bleed the affection from his voice. "What are you doing here anyway?" Though Todd, Lance and Fred had been expelled from Bayville High after the fight they'd instigated before a key PTA meeting on whether mutant kids should be allowed at school, so far as Evan knew, Pietro's name was still on the rolls at school, but the white-haired mutant was almost never in class. 

Pietro looked him square in the eyes. "Nothing good on TV, all the movies that are out suck, and they won't let anybody under 18 in the arcade during school hours. I figured I'd pay a visit to good old Bayville and see if I could drum up some excitement. But I found _you instead." His voice was bitter. "A few days ago, I would have figured getting _you _alone somewhere would have the potential to be real exciting. But now  . .  ." Pietro trailed off with a faltering shrug. "Now, I don't know."_

Evan stared at Pietro, and mused at how gorgeous his lover's eyes were. It wasn't just their melted-sapphire color and the way they seemed to darken, lighten, dim or sparkle according to the speedster's mood, but it was their ability to reveal everything and nothing of what Pietro was thinking – sometimes at the same time. He could tell Pietro was confused about where things stood with them, and for a guy as constantly sure of himself as Pietro tended to be, for his uncertainty to be so apparent on his face was rare.

"Look, 'Tro, about the other night . . ." Evan paused to choose just the right thing to say. Pietro would get bored and fed up if he thought he was being snowed, but Evan wasn't sure just how much of his "problem" he wanted to divulge to his boyfriend. "I'm, um, I'm going through some stuff right now and I . . . um . . . I'm just ticked off and frustrated about it – it doesn't have anything to do with you or um, us, and I don't mean it to seem like it does."

Evan watched his boyfriend's eyes soften as he accepted the words for the apology they were supposed to be. The smirk, however, remained. "What's the matter? They're putting the X-Games on pay per view?"

"No . . . I . . . uh . . ." The blond looked cautiously around at the stragglers loitering around the school. "I don't think it'd be cool to talk about it here. You got a couple of minutes?"

Evan could tell from the slight widening of his eyes that Pietro's interest was piqued despite the bored, "Yeah, sure," that Pietro threw his way. Rubbing the small of his back, Evan inclined his head down the street to where there was a little clearing pretty secluded from prying eyes. He and Pietro went there often, mainly to talk and hang out and fool around some when staying indoors got to be too constraining for them. "We can talk at _the place. You better go ahead of me." He shook his head at Pietro's questioning look. "It might look  . . . weird if people see us walking together. We're still supposed to hate each other, remember?"_

"That's old-school, Daniels," Pietro said in all seriousness. "We're mutants. We're supposed to stick together. We've got to, now. Or else, _they're going to win." He pointed to a group of smiling teens who were walking together and wearing identical T-shirts that read PRESERVE THE HUMAN RACE. More and more people were turning up with those T-shirts, and it was getting to be annoying and scary. Anti-mutant feeling was getting to be really intense _and _really public._

Glaring at the unknown teens, Evan glanced over at the speedster to reply, but blinked when he saw that Pietro had already departed and he was beneath the tree alone.

~*~

"'Tro . . . come on, I mean it. Let me up!"

"Nice try, Daniels . . ." Kisses were placed in rapid-fire succession across the skater's neck and across his chin, and Pietro ground his hips into Evan's lower half, leaning in with his full body weight to keep the blond pinned to the ground. The blond had been on his back ever since he'd arrived at _the place. _Going into the clearing and not seeing Pietro around, Evan had wondered if the speed demon had decided to go home when a silver blur came out of nowhere, knocked him to the grass and kept him there, holding him captive with kisses and fleeting touches.

"I weigh, like, 15 pounds less than you at least. You want me off of you, then just . . ." Another series of kisses warmed the area beneath Evan's chin. "push . . ." A nip at the skater's ear made Evan jump. "me . . ." White teeth nibbled at a chocolate-colored neck. "off . . ."

"Yeah, right." Evan attempted to disentangle himself from the speed demon's arms and found, that, just as was the case in his four previous attempts to get free, Pietro was as slick as an eel, and with his powers was able to wriggle out of the skater's grip with ease. "Quit using your powers, and _then _we'll see if you can keep me down."

The speed demon seemed to consider that for a moment. "All right fine. No powers. Just you and me, mano-a-mano." Pietro relaxed his grip and Evan pounced, easily reversing their positions and pinioning the thinner teen to the ground.

"Ahhhhh! _Now _let's hear the tough talk, Maximoff." Evan grinned into the stunned face of his captive boyfriend. "Now who's got the upper hand?"

Pietro was quiet for a second, and then a wide grin spread across the pale face. "You tell me, Daniels." Quick as lightening, Pietro's arms went around Evan's neck and pulled him down for a kiss. 

Evan returned the kiss with enthusiasm, losing himself in the gentle movements of Pietro's lips on his own and in exploration of each others' mouths, their tongues sharing the same dwelling. The blond felt some of the depression and anger that had settled upon him in recent days begin to lighten under the gentle kneading of  Pietro's hands as they moved from his neck and progressed downward across his shoulders and down his back, both hands slipping beneath the skater's shirt to caress his bare skin . . .

And Evan froze as he felt the long fingers slide over the Braille-like welts that dotted his lower back and sides, souvenirs of a spike attack that had happened that morning in the showers after gym. Opening his eyes and breaking the liplock, Evan saw Pietro staring at him, his brow furrowed as he moved with uncharacteristic slowness over the marked flesh.

"What the hell's the matter with your back? It feels like somebody attacked you with a cheese grater."

Evan rolled off the other teen with a sigh, his light mood going muddy again. For a few carefree moments, he'd been able to forget his problem and just be _himself _again – the Evan Daniels that existed before Sentinels and government briefings and pro-humanity groups and wayward powers. He knew that the old days of mutants under wraps and anonymity were gone forever, which made it even more tragic when forced to leave the sweet comfort he inexplicably found in Pietro's arms. 

"'Tro, I . . . wait . . . wait! What are you doing?!" Evan found his arm trapped in a vise-like grip, and with little fanfare, Pietro stripped him of his sweatshirt and undershirt, sending both pieces of clothing flying across the clearing. "Maximoff, don't –" He struggled to get out of Pietro's grip, but found himself thrashing uselessly as the speedy teen spun him around like a top, getting a full and unobstructed view of the blond's back. Evan stopped struggling then. It was over – his dirty little secret, or at least part of it, was literally out in the open. Evan let the blue-eyed gaze sear his back and just waited for Pietro to freak out or laugh or start teasing him . . .

The grip eased. "Who did this to you?"

Evan whirled around, stunned at the cold fury in the silver-haired teen's voice. Pietro's expression was neutral but the skater could see glints of anger flickering in the blue eyes like lightning against a gray sky. As frightening as it was, Evan was used to that look now. It was the same expression Pietro wore whenever anti-mutant comments were made in his hearing or when the so-called pro-humanity groups held demonstrations in Bayville's main square. It was a chilling, cold-blooded stare, and Evan knew that he had only to name some random human as the "culprit," and Pietro would take off, hunt the person down, and hurt him exquisitely, all in the name of protecting "mutant interests." Evan recalled the Professor saying that it was very likely that despite his precautions and preparations, there would be a mutant-human war at some point in the future, and Evan could imagine his speedy boyfriend on the front lines of such a war.

"'Tro, chill, okay? It's not what you think." Evan took a deep breath and remembered what Kurt had said the night before about letting someone know about his condition. Who else to tell but the guy he swapped spit with regularly? Weren't boyfriends supposed to share . . . or something? Besides, it wasn't as if he'd be able to hide anymore. "_I  . . . did this to me."_

Pietro just stared at him, waiting, Evan realized, for a more complete explanation. "my powers . . . my spikes . . . they're going nuts." The blond quietly collected his shirts and shook the grass out of them before putting them back on. "It's been happening a couple of weeks now. I  can't control it too well . . . like when I first found out about my powers. Sometimes, I couldn't even walk without ripping a spike – it was freaky." Shaking his head, Evan remembered those days before he joined the X-Men and he hadn't yet learned how to control his powers. "Except now, it's like ten times worse." Evan stared down at his forearm. "Before, my spikes never used to _hurt. _Like, my skin would itch a little right before they pop out, but they'd come out without any problem. I'd barely feel it. I'm feeling it now." Evan looked up at the still-silent Pietro. "It's not like they're ripping through my skin or anything, but they _pinch_ now. And they leave marks. Plus . . ." He paused before disclosing the most troubling part of the new development. "They don't go back right away."

The speedster's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about? Go back _where_?"

"Back _in_. To my skin." Evan sighed in exasperation at Pietro's blank stare. "Just . . . all right, just watch this." Evan rolled up his sleeve and let his body relax as he mentally flipped the internal switch that created his spikes. He gritted his teeth and rode out the intense itching of his skin and bit his lip hard when a row of bone popped out, sending a slight, sharp pain through his entire arm. Glancing up at Pietro whose eyes were riveted to the row of spikes, Evan counted to three and then attempted to reverse the mental process that created the spikes, to retract the bones. Nothing happened, and the spikes remained. 

"I'm trying to send 'em back, but they won't go," Evan said quietly, fighting to keep his fear and frustration from showing in his face. "I have to concentrate really, really hard." Shutting his eyes, he did just that, closing out the world around him until he could hear only his frenzied heartbeat in his ears and feel his brain throbbing in his skull. He felt a movement on skin, and Evan opened his eyes to see that the spikes had gone in again, leaving their tell-tale markings behind. He held out his arm to Pietro. "See?"

Staring at the outstretched arm a minute, Pietro turned wondering eyes to his boyfriend. "So what does this mean? It looks annoying, but doesn't mean it's dangerous. Maybe this is just _your version of getting zits." Pietro took step forward. "What's King Peace on Earth say about it?"_

Evan rolled his eyes at Pietro's derisive nickname for Professor Xavier. "He hasn't said anything. _Nobody's_ said anything because I haven't told anyone."

Dark eyebrows shot up in surprise. "_Nobody?"_

The blond hesitated. He _had _told Kurt after the furry mutant had seen him struggling to retract his spikes after a Danger Room session, but he thought it as well to not mention that to Pietro. "I haven't told my parents, my aunt . . . I don't know what _to tell 'em. I'm hoping it's just some phase. Maybe stress or something." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Anyway, it's getting weird. I bump into something, or something bumps me, and I spike up, just like back in the day. Nobody's really noticed yet, but that doesn't mean somebody _won't. _That's why I bailed on getting pierced. You were right about it not being about my parents and about me being . . . scared." The skater thought for sure Pietro would jump on his admission of fear, and was surprised when the thinner boy said nothing. "But not scared of getting pierced – if I get spiky when someone taps me on the shoulder too hard, imagine what I might do if a needle's put through my ear."_

 He saw Pietro pale in understanding of what a bad situation an errant spike could create – especially with the piercer in close proximity. "I know I should have said something before, but I thought it'd go away before now." _And it hasn't. Evan rubbed his still-tingling arm and poked at the darkening red welts there. _Feels like it's getting worse, too. _ _

"This has been going on a couple of _weeks?" Pietro pushed wisps of hair out of his eyes. "I've been doing a lot _more _than bumping into you since then. How come _I_ don't look like I belong on top of a ham sandwich?"_

Evan thought that over for a minute. That was a good point, and not one he'd considered until just then. Except for Danger Room scenarios and other odd times, he hadn't had any spiking problems around his teammates or his boyfriend. The worst of it came during school or right after and especially after run-ins with the pro-humanity organizations that were beginning to form in Bayville High.

"I guess it's like kind of a weird sort of reverse psychology or something like that," Evan said at last. "Like, the more I worry about hiding 'em, the more they come out. I don't worry about my spikes around the mansion or when I'm with _you, _'cause I guess I don't feel like I'm in a hostile environment like at school." Evan rubbed a hand over his hair. "You're used to me with the spikes . . . they don't scare you and they don't disgust you and you don't act like you want to kill me when you see them. I don't feel . . . I don't know . . . intimidated by you, I guess. I can be . . . me." And so saying, Evan realized how true that was, and how true it always had been, even before his powers manifested. No matter what, he'd never had to pretend or put up a front with Pietro, and it had been refreshing to know there was someone out there who knew he was more than just a good-time guy who cared more about busting moves than ruining a test's curve – even if that someone had, for a long time, been an "enemy."  

"_I _don't intimidate you? I must be doing something wrong." The speedster's tone was dry, but his smirk was so closely bordering on a smile that Evan laughed despite the nagging worry in his brain that his life would be so much more complicated if his powers didn't settle down soon. But in another moment, he was back on the ground with Pietro on top of him and snaking his hand down the front of Evan's cargos in an attempt at a  _new form of intimidation. Evan put up a half-hearted struggle, content to bury his problems for awhile. He knew he'd have to face them again, possibly sooner rather than later, but Evan was rooting for later – much later – and he put the thoughts aside and gladly allowed Pietro to establish his "dominance." Evan knew he'd get a chance to turn the tables and be on top again – literally and figuratively – soon enough._

to be continued


	3. Salvation?

author's thing: Because I'm stupid, this will go one more chapter. Sorry. I hoped to have this wrapped up by now. And because I stole, sort of, Erin's idea for this story, I'm going to be a follower again and put a longer version of this chapter on Thin Line like she did with Admirer. I was told by my beta reader that if I put the uncensored chapter up here, I could get reported. That would suck. So if you want to read a racier version of this chapter, go to the site. But please read and review here, please. Thanks.

****

The sun was just dipping below the horizon when Evan entered the mansion and dragged himself up the stairs leading to his room. He was covered in dust, there was grass in his shorts, and his knees were slightly bruised . . . and he felt freaking terrific. He and Pietro had . . . communed for hours in their little hiding place, and the result was the most fun Evan had had for a good while. There weren't any spikes, no sores, nothing strange – well, aside from Pietro's neon purple underwear. Just a pleasant afternoon spent largely on his knees with his boyfriend. It just didn't get much better.

Reaching for his doorknob, Evan jerked back when it turned without his touching it, and his door flew open to reveal his Auntie O carrying an armful of his dirty clothes.

"Oh my goodness, Evan!" She recoiled, then relaxed. "You startled me." She shifted to glance at her watch, and then looked at him again with her eyebrows high. "You've been out quite awhile."

"Yeah, um, there was basketball –" He stopped, and backtracked quickly, remembering that he couldn't use practice as an excuse anymore. _Crap. I need to start writing this stuff down._ "Um, Bayville was going to play Central High. I thought about going, but changed my mind. Decided to board awhile."

"I see." Evan stiffened as his aunt peered at him, scanning him from head to toe. "It looks like you had a rough time of it." Shrewd, pale-blue eyes locked to his. "It's not like you to be so . . . untidy from a session of skateboarding."

"I was doing some new tricks." Evan found he couldn't quite hold his aunt's gaze. "I haven't really ironed out all the kinks." He looked down and his mouth fell open. There were grass stains on his _knees. He discreetly attempted to tug his shorts down to cover them. "I guess I was a little tired, and I always get sloppy when I'm feeling low-energy."_

Ororo's eyes softened. "I know school has been rough on all of you lately." She cupped his cheek. "And the Professor and I are so very proud of the way you all are handling yourselves. We have no choice to believe that once it is established that _most _mutants are not a threat to mankind, things will become easier for all of us."

"Well, it can't get any worse," Evan muttered, ducking his head and shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Knees aside, he had purplish marks on his neck that would be hard to blame on falling off his board. "Um, I'm gonna get cleaned up, auntie, you know, I kinda . . . reek."

"I wouldn't go _that _far, but a shower and a change of clothes would probably be a good idea." Ororo smiled gently and moved aside. "Dinner's in ten. It's your favorite – lasagna. And for dessert, cheesecake. Lots of dairy – maybe it'll give you back some of that energy. I notice you've not been drinking as much milk lately."

"Yeah, I haven't really felt like –" Evan was edging into his room, but he stopped abruptly, his eyes going wide. "–it . . ." 

Doing a quick calculation in his mind, his eyes went even wider when he realized just how sharply his milk intake had dropped. No pizza with extra-cheese, no milkshakes from Burger Bomb, hardly any milk in his cereal. And no chugging carton after carton of 2-percent. He hadn't lost his taste for moo juice, but he wasn't consuming as much of it as he had in the past. _Maybe that's the problem. _Deep in thought, he wandered into his room, rubbing the marks on his arm. _Maybe milk doesn't just do a body good . . . it keeps mine from turning against me. Stripping to shower, Evan's first thought was to run to the kitchen and start chugging, but he held himself back. He decided he'd eat dinner and then see how he felt. But first, it was time to clean up, and find a shirt with a neck high enough to hide the hickeys on his neck, or his spike situation would be the _least _of his worries.  _

~*~

Chomping his way through two helpings of lasagna, a slice and a half of cherry cheesecake and three tall glasses of milk, Evan sprinted up the stairs to his room and eagerly shut and locked his door, ready to test his spikes. It never took his body long to digest the milk and pull the much-needed calcium into his bones. Another function of his mutation, the skater figured. Inhaling deeply, Evan did a count to three before reaching in his mind to turn on his spikes. Within seconds, a row of neat bone ridges protruded from his forearm. And there was _no _pinching sensation as they punched through – just the slight itching of his skin that indicated that they were coming out. 

_All right, Spykeman . . . don't get too excited. _Evan gently prodded one of the shards of bone. _Let's see if they go back in without a fight. With another deep inhalation, Evan let his breath out slowly and counted down in his mind . . . two seconds . . . three . . . four . . . five –_

With a start, he looked down at his arm. They were gone. The spikes had gone in, no straining, no second-tries, no problem.

_And no ugly-ass marks. _Evan rubbed the smooth stretch of skin where the spikes had appeared. _Nothing! Just like the old days!  Still, he quashed the hope that was surging in him. Once could be called a fluke. If he could do it __twice . . ._

Repeating his actions to the letter, Evan made the spikes appear on the palms of his hands, and with a mental _go command, watched in shocked awe as they shot from his hands and buried themselves neatly into the corner of his room that he'd been aiming at._

_Yes_!_ Yes! __That's it!Evan barely held back from jumping up and down like a weirdo. Kurt was next door, though, and Evan feared alarming his furry teammate. Throwing himself on his bed instead, he amused himself by creating little spikes, no larger than the width of a pencil, and shooting at the ceiling, hitting the mark every time. He knew that Auntie 'Ro would probably go off on him if she saw him Swiss-cheesing his room, but Evan, for the moment, didn't care, just so relieved that there wasn't some huge, deep-rooted cause for his ailment – just a lack of moo juice. He wondered how he could have gone so long without noticing. Sure, things had been a little hectic with the return to school after the whole mutant-outing thing, but still . . . _

He rose from his bed slowly as if in a trance, and stared at a bottle on his dresser. It was a soda bottle that had seen better days, empty now of the cold, bubbly drink it had once contained. The cheery neon red lightning bolt against black lettering made the thing look almost Goth, but Evan realized that in that bottle lay part of the reason he'd bailed on his milk habit. 

The _other_ part of the reason – inadvertently, sorta – was across town, possibly trying to explain away grass stains on his _own _clothes. That in mind, Evan lunged for his phone and dialed quickly, hoping that for a change, _he'd _be the one to pick up. Whenever someone else at the Brotherhood compound picked up, they gave the blond hell for being a "mutant sell-out" just because the X-Men refused to join any of the pro-mutant groups that were springing up around the country. Evan had tried disguising his voice once, but that hadn't worked. Apparently, Pietro didn't get a lot of calls.

"'_Allo_?"

Evan blinked. That didn't sound like Todd or Lance or Fred. Or Mystique for that matter. He wondered if he'd mis-dialed. "Uh, sorry. I think I have the wrong number –"

"Who you lookin' for, _mon ami_?"

The blond frowned into the phone. The voice was _not familiar, but whoever it was sounded like Pepe LaPew with a lisp. "Um, Pietro Maximoff, but I don't think –"_

"_Oui_. Dis his phone number. Who can I say wants 'im?"

"Uh . . ." Evan wasn't sure what was going on, but he did know that Pietro or somebody had better have a damn good explanation for this guy's presence. "He'll know who it is. Just tell him he has a phone call."

Normally, the blond wasn't so rude or short over the phone, especially with someone he didn't even know, but the guy was irritating him, especially his voice . . . like he'd swallowed glass or something. Still, Evan felt kind of like he was being a jerk, and was going to amend his words and add a 'please' or two, but that's when the mystery man chuckled, and said something beneath his breath that Evan could not quite catch.

"_Mysterieux_, eh?  I like dat. You a _homme after my own heart." The man laughed again. "Hold th' line, _mon ami_. I'll get 'im directly." _

Evan jumped when the receiver was all but slammed down, and a sharp tone called out for Pietro. The blond's curiosity quickly became concern: Nobody, not even Lance, really, spoke with such . . . well . . . _authority. Pietro had always acted as de-facto head of the Brotherhood, and that was even before it had come out that Magneto was his father. Whoever this _mon ami _guy was acted as if he owned the place, and that didn't sound good. Evan frowned deeply. It didn't sound good at all._

"Hello?"

"'Tro?" Evan spoke softly. "It's me. Can you talk?"

"Sure." There was a rustling noise, then Pietro's voice again, clearer than before. "What's up . . . or is _that a dumb question?"_

Evan blushed at Pietro's knowing snicker. "Uh-uh. Still tapped out from earlier." He still spoke cautiously. "Yo, who answered your phone?"

Pietro's laughter stopped much too quickly for Evan's taste. "Oh. Him. That's . . . a new boarder."

"A new _what_?"

"Boarder. Someone who's renting a room here . . . and paying for it," Pietro said.  "It was Lance's bright idea – said this place is _supposed _to be the Bayville Boarding House . . . so he figured if we fix the place up, we could rent out the extra rooms and make money like that. We put up a couple of flyers. So far, this guy's the only one we hooked. He moved in a couple of days ago."

Evan didn't respond for a while. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't wholly believe his boyfriend. Pietro's voice sounded smooth enough, and the story was plausible enough, but there was something else . . . something about the way the guy had _sounded. _He had the cool confidence of someone who thought they owned a place, not just renting out one measly room.

"That's kinda dangerous, isn't it?" Evan said after awhile, wondering why he was speaking so softly. No one could hear him through the walls, and there was only one phone at Pietro's, but the blond couldn't get over the feeling that someone was eavesdropping. "He could be one of those anti-mutant assholes. Everyone knows who the mutants are in Bayville. What if he was sent there to infiltrate ya'll? You could be sleeping in your beds, and here he comes with an AK-47."

"Daniels, you _really _need to try reading a book or something." Pietro sounded amused. "All those spy movies are turning your brain to shredded wheat. I don't know why he's in Bayville, and I don't really care. He's got money – he paid three months up front. And believe me – he's _not _anti-mutant."

"How do _you _know, man?" Evan knew Pietro wanted him to drop the subject, but the blond still felt uneasy. "What the hell do you know about him? What's his name? Where's he from?"

"He goes by Remy, and weirdly, I think that's _his real name, poor asshole." Pietro answered. "Where he's from? I don't know. He said he lived in the City for awhile, doing card tricks on the street for money."_

_Card tricks_? That seemed to stir some vague memory within Evan, but it was too shadowy to draw out. "The City? He doesn't _sound _like he's from there. He sounds French or something."

"He's Cajun or some shit. I wasn't really listening. Todd might know. He's been talking to him all day about eating snails or something stupid." Now Pietro sounded a little annoyed. "Look, all _you need to know is that he's not gonna be in our way when you come over. I don't know his deal, but I _do_ know he's not gonna be here long. This place is barely big enough for the four of us . . . but we need the money."_

"Okay, okay, chill." Evan knew that money was a sore point with Pietro and the rest of the Brotherhood. Mystique had abandoned them again – for good, it looked like – and Pietro swore his father was out of the picture, so the Brotherhood had to fend for itself. And with so much anti-mutant feeling around, it was hard for any known mutant to get honest work. "I just wondered. Remember, I haven't been around in the past couple of days."

"Yeah, I noticed. My right hand hates you, Daniels. Whacking off alone is _so _unfulfilling – tiring, too."

Evan's cheeks, and other parts of him that were a bit lower down, warmed up a little. "Uh, yeah. For me, too. Thought we made up for it pretty good today, though."

"Yeeee-aah." Evan could hear the smile in Pietro's voice. "Today was pretty good. Still, would've been nice if you'd, uh, let me return the favor. But I figured with the spike thing . . . you didn't want to take any chances."

"Yeah, I thought of that. But seriously, I don't think I coulda held on long enough for you to get in position." Evan shifted, feeling the room in the crotch of his pants diminishing rapidly. "Uh, anyway, that's why I called. Dude, I think I figured it out!"

"What?"

"The spike thing? My problem . . . I mean . . . it was simple . . . easy . . ." Evan rolled onto his stomach, propelled by a resurgence of excitement. "I can't believe I didn't think  . . . I mean . . . whoa . . . it was . . . _obvious . . ." Evan paused for breath._

"Daniels, you know, a _conversation _usually goes a lot better when full sentences are involved."

Evan breathed out, forcing himself to calm down. "All right, all right . . . sorry man . . . I'm just jazzed. I . . . okay . . . you know how I need to drink a lot of milk to put back the calcium that my spikes take out of me?"

"Yeah, I remember seeing you drink fifteen cartons of that crap. I _still _don't know how you can take the taste. Tastes like spit to me. _White _spit."

The blond ignored that. "Anyway, well, the more I drink the more spikes I can make. And the _less _I drink, well, the less I make. I guess."

"You _guess_?"

"Well I don't know. I've always liked milk. I've always drank it. I guess my body craved it because of my mutation. There's never been a time that I _stopped _drinking it . . . until a few months ago. _You _got me into drinking JambaJolt." Evan glared at the empty bottle on his dresser. "Got me so hooked on it, that I stopped drinking much milk at all. Pure milk – not just cheese or yogurt or whatever, but actual moo juice."

"And . . . ?"

"And so, since my body didn't have a surplus of calcium to use, it got hard for me to make spikes. And the spikes I made were all hard and weird looking and they hurt comin' out." Evan paused a little. "I guess it's almost like starving or something. You can survive for awhile off your fat cells, but it won't be comfortable. For me to not have what happened to me happen, I gotta keep my calcium levels high. Either by popping vitamins or drinking moo juice. I ate all this dairy stuff at dinner, and came up here and was able to grow spikes, retract 'em, and shoot with no problem. All I needed to do was add milk, man."

"So . . . milk is like a laxative for your spikes. You need it to keep things flowing regular, eh?"

Evan made a pained face. Leave it to the speed demon to come up with a perfectly disgusting analogy for what was for Evan, a very happy discovery. "Whatever, man. Anyway, I had to call you soon as I figured out what the problem was. It's a relief, I'm telling you. I was starting to think I was  . . . I dunno . . . turning into some weird thing."

"You know you're leaving yourself _wide open for with that one, Daniels. But since you were such a __good boy earlier, I'll let it go."_

Evan shook his head, smiling. Pietro was happy for him, Evan could tell, and was expressing it in typical Pietro style – with sneer and snark attached. "So, you know what this means, right? We can go on and get me pierced! I'm ready for it. After all the crap I've been through with my spikes, it can't be any more painful."

There was silence. Lots of it. Evan's happy expression faded as he wondered if the phone had gone dead. 

Finally, "Evan. We – you don't have to do that."

The blond was quiet. Evan. Not Spykesnot or Spykeboy or Daniels or Bleach. _Evan_. Pietro had called him _Evan. _And the way he _said it . . . it was in the same soft and gentle voice Evan imagined Pietro would use when and if he said, "I love you." Evan didn't hold out much hope of ever hearing those words from Pietro – they just weren't the type to get all gooey with each other. Besides, Evan knew. He _knew. _Still, Pietro using his actual name and saying it in _that _voice . . . Evan shivered, wondering what was going through his boyfriend's mind._

"I _want _to do it, 'Tro. I said I would . . . I'm not gonna back out now."

"Yeah, but . . . what if you're wrong?" There was a moment of silence. "What if it's _not _the milk thing? What if the same thing starts happening again?"

"It won't, dude. It _is _the milk thing. Seriously, it's the best I've felt in weeks – so far as my spikes go." Evan frowned. "Why are you twitchy about it?"

"I'm not. I just –" Pietro's voice was faltering and uncertain. "This thing made you crazy. I don't want you to get your hopes up if this is just a temporary fix."

"It's _not_." Evan fought down his anger as best he could. He appreciated Pietro's concern, but wasn't the speed demon listening? Everything was going to be all right now. 

"Everything's cool." The blond caressed the back of his arms in reassurance and shot off a spike that went right through the plastic JambaJolt bottle. "You'll see. Now c'mon . . . tell me what time you wanna go to the mall. Kitty says they pierce guys half-price on Thursdays and Fridays . . ."

to be continued – again


	4. Norms just wanna have fun

author's thing: ok I swear, just one more chapter to wrap this up. I got a new idea for the ending, and it wouldn't have fit in this part, so, please don't kill me. One more chapter, I  promise. Thanks for continuing to read.

****

Evan had never been much of a mall person, even in his younger days when he had more time to waste, and a little more money, too. For one thing, the City didn't have much in the way of actual shopping mega-complexes, and for another, why the hell would he want to spend a perfectly nice afternoon indoors, dodging soccer moms and their whiny brats or packs of gum-chewing, pony tailed mallrats when he could be on a perfect slab of asphalt, running the latest board routines?

In Bayville, though, the mall was _it – _the _social center for the town's teen set. It was a one-stop funfest – two arcades, a food court that took up a whole floor, and two movie theatres, in addition to an ever-changing selection of specialty shops and anchor stores like Macy's. The Mall had everything a person could want under one roof. There was no need to go elsewhere, and that was a good thing, 'because there was nowhere else __to go._

At the moment, that was the problem. "Yo, man – slow down a minute." Evan huffed through the packed mall, struggling to keep in step with the white-haired boy, who was, at present, several steps ahead of the blond. And, judging by the way Pietro was moving, those several steps quickly threatened to become several feet.

The silver-haired boy shot a glance full of teasing disdain over his shoulder. "C'mon, Daniels, don't tell me you're winded already. You're supposed to be an _athlete. _Get the lead out."

Glowering, Evan quickened his steps, and noticed that Pietro was subtly slowing his until they fell in beside each other. "How much you wanna bet half these people cut 7th period to come here." He looked around at the masses that crammed the Bayville Mall. "No way could they've gotten here before _we_ did otherwise." The blond's head was still a little woozy from the shock of being whizzed along the ground at 110 miles an hour – or however fast it was Pietro was able to run.

"Pity them, Daniels. Not _everybody _gets a chance to ride the Quickie Express. The only way to travel." Pietro steered them in the direction of the food court. "Heylet'sgetburgersI'mhungryI'llpay."

Evan found that the easiest way to decode Pietro's speed-speak was to focus on the first couple of words and the last couple of words. If he could understand what _they_ were, filling in the bit in the middle was relatively easy. "Yeah, sure. Isn't it cool they opened up a Burger Barn stand here? Blows that they took out Terminal Taco, though." 

He tagged behind Pietro and squinted at the menu. He would, he decided, order something cheap enough not to put a dent in Pietro's likely meager funds, but not _so _cheap that Pietro would realize what he was doing. The speed demon rarely had money – from where, Evan didn't know and was almost afraid to ask, though once Pietro had mentioned that his foster family back in the City, the Maximoffs, sent him a few dollars here and there on occasions like birthdays and Christmas. But Christmas had passed, and Pietro's birthday was months away, so that couldn't be the source of his sudden income.

_Forget it. _Evan waved away his worries as he decided on the Atomic Junior special. _He probably saves his money. It's not like we go out a lot . . . _

His train of thought quickly jumped the tracks, however, when they got to the cashier and, before Evan could say a word, Pietro ordered two Super-Detonator Specials and Subzero Shakes. "Make one extra large," Pietro demanded, with a sly look at Evan. 

"Uh, 'Tro, that's a lot of . . ." _money  . . . "uh . . . food. Maybe we should share . . ." Evan's eyes nearly rolled out of his head when Pietro casually pulled out his wallet and separated a $20 bill from a large stack of them, passing it to the bored-looking girl behind the counter. __Holy . . ._

Pietro took the order ticket the girl handed him and, oblivious to Evan's dying-fish expression, moved down to the 'Pick-up Order' window. 

Evan searched vainly for his voice, as Pietro leaned idly against the counter, making a 'condiment' pyramid out of salt, pepper and sugar packets. Finally, after groping uselessly for air and words for a moment, Evan found some. "You have _money_."

They were _words, _all right, but judging by Pietro's odd look as he turned to stare at the blond, Evan reasoned that he probably could have chosen better ones. "I mean, um, you have a _lot _of . . . um . . . you never really . . . uh . . . I mean . . ." He squirmed under Pietro's unwavering gaze, trying to heed the voice inside his head that was _screaming at him to just shut up and let it go. Pietro had promised him that he wasn't liberating "Uh . . ."_

"Yep, my cut of our new boarder's rent." Pietro peered into his wallet. "May seem like a lot of money now, but I have to make it last three months."

Evan said nothing, but he thought that over. "Don't you guys have to pay bills and stuff? How do you have anything left?"

"Fred is taking care of that stuff." Pietro was looking at the plastic menu advertising the day's specials. "He's got some head for math and stuff. Figured since the lights are on and the water's running, everything's OK. It's not like we're at home using up everything all the time. _Some of us have lives –"_

"Hey." The laconic voice of the cashier drew their attention and gave Evan a slight reprieve from his fumbling. "Shake machine's broken." She jerked her head back toward the shadowy recesses of the burger assembly line, the deep fryer and beyond. "Want soda? We got Coke, Sprite, JambaJolt . . ."

Evan was about to put in for a Sprite, but Pietro got in ahead of him with a testy, "Broken, huh? Maybe that explains the last couple of shakes I had from here. Well, whaddaya have with milk in it?"

The girl blinked slowly as if she had to dig deep to recall what exactly milk _was. _Finally, she appealed to a figure that was bending over the French fry machine. "Drew. We got milk?"

Drew didn't move. "Milk? Nah. Milk_shakes. We have milk_shakes._" He sounded as if he got that question a lot. "Chocolate, multi, straw-"_

"No, machine's broken." She looked accusingly at Pietro. "This guy wants _milk _or something."

"Or something." Pietro muttered to Evan. "Well if this kinda intellect doesn't show the superiority of the human race –"

"'Tro . . ." Evan began warningly, but was cut off by a startled noise Drew made in the back of his throat.

"_Broken_?" Drew seemed to turn green. "Since when?"

"Dunno. Couple of days, I guess. They have some weird chemicals in it, tryin' to clean it out."

The boy's hands went to his stomach, and he doubled over, edging toward the back. "Uh . . . I'm, um, going on break. We don't have any milk." Turning, he ran, soon disappearing into the shadows, where a scary retching noise was heard.

"We don't have milk." The girl smiled fakely at them and turned to get their order together, ignoring the death glare Pietro was aiming at her. 

"It's all right." Evan pulled Pietro a little ways from the counter. "I loaded up at lunch. I should be okay. Thanks for thinkin' of me though."

"Thinking of _you_? Ha." Pietro folded his arms. "I'm going to be right there when you get the big prick. The _other _big prick." Pietro grinned at Evan's cough of embarrassment. "You making me into a dartboard would take all the fun out of hearing you scream like a little girl when they put that piercing thingy against your ear and pull the trigger . . ."

"Save the fantasies for later, Maximoff. I'm not gonna scream." Evan shivered a little, pulling on the strings of his hoody to tighten the shirt around him.  The air conditioning in the mall was cranked up way high. "It won't hurt that much. It'll be over quick. Easy. No mess." 

"Maybe. I wouldn't know. I got mine the old-fashioned way." Pietro grimaced slightly at the memory. "A needle and _thread. And a block of ice to numb the pain. . ."_

Evan started. He couldn't _even imagine. Well . . . he could, and it was making him sweat. Such a process seemed not only excruciatingly painful, but excruciatingly slow, as well. He couldn't imagine Pietro sitting still while someone jabbed at his delicate lobes with a darning needle._

 "Christ, man, what were you tryin' to prove? Your ear coulda rotted or something. If you needed the money to go get it done professionally, you coulda asked me. We were friends back then."

"Wasn't about money. It was about tradition. My foster mom did it." Pietro fingered the pierced lobe, his eyes softening at the memory. "It was . . . she said it was the way it was done in the old country, or whatever. A rite of passage. Boys becoming men, all that. If we'd been back in the old country, I would've been in the running to head up a caravan . . . be one of the big shots. Ready for marriage." Pietro leered at him. "Y'know, it's a good thing my foster parents aren't here to see what you're about to do . . . getting pierced the _modern _way." The way he said _modern_, Evan knew the speedster meant _sissy._ "They might not let me marry you if they knew."

Evan held Pietro's gaze, smiling slightly himself. "_Might not?"_

"Yeah, well, they're old-fashioned." Pietro's leer curled into a gentle smile. He reached out and gently stroked the side of Evan's face, finger's tracing along the dark-skinned teen's jaw. "But I'm not."

The very deliberate clearing of a throat startled them apart, and both turned to see the counter girl staring at them with saucer eyes, edging their order toward them. "Um. Here." She looked from one face to the other, recognition flitting across her eyes. "Uh . . . I found some Stratosphere Smoothies in the back. Says there's milk in them, so . . . yeah. Take 'em." She gave the tray an almost violent shove forward, frowning heavily at the floor as she edged away from them.

"Gee. Thanks." Pietro packed a year's worth of snark into those two words as Evan grabbed the food. The girl looked up then, her eyes cold with fear and hatred – an odd juxtaposition to the multicolored button she wore proclaiming, "We ::heart:: our customers" in bold, orange letters.

Turning to find an open table, Pietro chuckled beneath his breath, his laughter stripped of any real amusement. "We probably made her day . . . not every day of the week you get to wait on two mutie queers. Did you see her? Looked like her head was about to explode. Not like there was a lot up there, so if it had, there wouldn't have been too big a mess."

"Forget about it." Evan heard the strained quality of Pietro's voice, and knew that the speedster was dangerously close to going off on someone or something. "This stuff looks good. Not sure about these." He held up one of the smoothies, turning the bottle over in his hand as if inspecting a rare artifact. "I think I had one of these once . . . I remember not liking it to much, but I can't really remember why. I think I gave the rest to Bobby."

He looked up, expecting some sort of response, but saw instead the side of Pietro's face as he glared at the far end of the court. Following his gaze, Evan's throat tightened. Two uniformed mall guards were combing the area, batons drawn and hands loosely on their holsters. Every few tables, the guards would stop and talk to the occupants, most of them wary-looking teens. The teens would take some sort of card out of their pockets or wallets, which the guards would barely look at before moving on to repeat the process a few tables later.

"Look at that." The white-haired teen's voice crackled with anger as his eyes followed the guards' movements. "Goddamn _norms can't even let people eat in peace. Guess the hunt for mutie scum doesn't take a lunch break."_

Evan bristled at that word. _Norm. Thrown out in the open air like a grenade. Short for "normal," as in a non-mutant, it was considered a slur – though a mild one – in response to the derisive "mutie" that was hurled at known mutants by various and sundry. _Norm _wasn't allowed to be used at the mansion to refer to humans, as the Professor said name-calling would do little to help their cause, though Evan had caught some of the younger mutants muttering it beneath their breath whenever they were stared at in public. _

"Don't get all worked up." Evan opened the bottle and took a hesitant sip of the smoothie. It wasn't . . . bad. He frowned in thought. It was no milkshake, but it was fairly okay. It had a different taste to it. "They're probably checkin' for truants, or something."

"Nice try, Daniels. School's been out an hour." Pietro reluctantly turned away. "No, they just wanna bash heads, all in the name of preserving the human race. And they're gettin' even more blatant – ya know that they're not going prosecute mutant bashing as hate crimes." The white-haired mutant picked at his food. "I heard it on the news – say that since mutants aren't humans, they shouldn't have human rights." He took a vicious bite of his burger. "Fucking _norms'll _get what's coming to them . . ."

"Maximoff, can it with that." Evan looked uneasily at a table of young, college-types that were eyeing them skeptically. "Not all people who _aren't_ mutants are against us. There's some decent people out there . . . like _my parents . . . _your _parents . . ."_

"My parents weren't _norms_." Pietro's eyes blazed like a curse. 

"The ones who _count _are. The ones who raised you." Evan stared hard at his boyfriend until Pietro dropped his gaze, unable or unwilling to refute that. "'Tro, my folks told me once about when they were young and black people were treated like shit. Couldn't work where they wanted, couldn't go certain places. Lots of people joined the civil rights movement to change things. And a lot of people who joined _weren't_ black. The only way stuff got done was because of people in the majority working to help people who weren't." 

Evan took another swig of his smoothie. It tasted a lot better when chased with a couple of French fries, Evan found. "It's gonna have to be the same thing with mutants. They'd _still _be hunting us down if people in power didn't understand that a lot of us aren't necessarily looking to hurt people. Yeah, it's still hard, just like it's still hard if you're black, but the only chance mutants are gonna have to not be hunted down and dissected and shit is if we stop acting like there's _no humans that won't help us."_

"That's Baldy's rhetoric. And it ain't going to work." Pietro shook his head. "Plus, no offense, but I'll bet that civil rights woulda come a lot quicker for black people if they were able to blast asshole racists with their eyes, or mindfuck 'em or use 'em as pincushions." The white-haired mutant looked Evan dead in the eye. "The _norms _are afraid of us, Daniels. They don't understand us . . . or our powers, and since they can't understand us or our powers, they want to control both. If they can go around with their pro-humanity shit, why shouldn't we band together, too? It's gonna get worse for us . . . and _some of us are _not _gonna take it – I'll tell you that now, Evan. I hope when it all hits, we're on the same side." Pietro spoke softly. "But if you still believe Xavier's bullshit when it comes to war between _us _and the _norms_, then I won't be able to help you – or be with you."_

Not sure how or even if to reply, Evan busied himself in the task of eating, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the table full of college kids that had openly been staring at them were now moving to a table farther away, whispering and casting accusatory and fearful glances at the two young mutants as they went. Evan lowered his eyes as he felt the gazes of those in the group hit him like so many missiles. Pietro saw them too and he glared contemptuously at them as they moved, as if daring them to say a word. They, wisely, did not, and with a shake of his head that was as much sorrowful as it was exasperated, Pietro fell to eating, too, and the two continued their meal in a tense, uncomfortable silence.

to be continued again


End file.
